Mencius was a Chinese Confucian philosopher, commonly referred to as “the second Sage.” Mencius believed that man and other things are born or created as being good, and lose their way later in life when they fall off the path of righteousness. He validates his point on page 283 of The Wisdom of Confucius when talking about the Niu Mountain and how it was born with beauty, but man stole that from it. Mencius says, “with proper nourishment and care, everything grows, and without the proper nourishment and care, everything degenerates or decays.” Because Mencius believes that things are born good, he also believes that they must be properly taken care of. If we want a plant to grow and prosper, then we know that we must take proper care of it. However, people tend to not take care of themselves, and they then fall off the path of righteousness and are unable to grow and prosper. Rather than belittle these people, the text explains that we should pity them and help them find the path again once they have lost their heart.
In Man’s Nature is Evil, Hsun Tzu’s beliefs are quite the opposite of Mencius’. Instead of being born good, Hsun Tzu believes that man’s nature is evil and a person needs instructions and teachers to be set on the righteous path. We are born with nothing, no prior knowledge or beliefs. Therefore, our environment and who we are surrounded by is extremely important to becoming who we will be. One of my favorite quotes from the reading says “If you do not know a man, look at his friends” (171). Another point Hsun Tzu makes is that man’s nature is to love profit and desire gain, an act that is considered evil because man is not humble and appreciative of what he has. After doing the readings, I believe that Mencius and Hsun both had interesting points and ideas, but from a personal experience and belief, I lean more toward Hsun Tzu’s teachings. My parents were very involved in my upbringing and education as a child. I came from a relatively strict family, and as Han Fei Tzu points out in Eminence on Learning, a strict household generally leads to greater obedience and good behavior. I am very fortunate for this, and I believe a lot of credit for who I am as a person today should go to them. One of my distant cousins, however, was not so lucky. He did not have the best role models in his life, and as a result he found himself in and out of jail multiple times before he was thirty years old. Because of my experiences, I believe more in Hsun Tzu’s view that man’s nature is to be evil, and we must be guided onto the right path through instructions and teachings.